


winter is when its left forgotten under the snow until spring

by abettafish



Series: stasis chamber [2]
Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crying, Dream's in the prison, Hearing Voices, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28911294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abettafish/pseuds/abettafish
Summary: “I think I’m in love with you, actually,” Dream murmurs. Techno pulls back the queued retort he has – actually, he pulls back in his entirety and just stares, completely dumbfounded.Or, Techno visits Dream in Pandora's Vault.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: stasis chamber [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120391
Comments: 32
Kudos: 677





	winter is when its left forgotten under the snow until spring

**Author's Note:**

> i wasn't planning on doing a part two to this, but like, the idea is just too good to pass up.
> 
> as a side note, in this universe dream has already used the favor!

The escaping lava backlights Technoblade’s silhouette with an angry red glow. He walks forward on the blackstone that leads into the obsidian cell, where Dream stands photo-still, refusing to look at him. It makes his jaw tighten, because only a few days ago was this man declined to look _away_ from him. He’s been stripped down now, to just a black turtleneck and pants with his signature green sweater. His armor and weapons in the possessive hands of Tommy and Tubbo. They’ll stay relatively safe with them, he knows, but it makes his heart twinge to see them in their fingers when he is so familiar with the hands they belong too.

“No matter what you do, huh?” Techno forces out. He catches Dream’s flinch when his voice breaks the silence. The barrier between the two lowers and Techno sets foot onto the obsidian, making Dream take a few steps back.

“Or what you say?” He pushes. Dream continues to back peddle as Techno keeps advancing, until his back hits the dark stone making up the walls of the prison.

( **Poor Dream.**

**He’s trapped here! He can’t hurt us.**

**Pitiful.** )

His hand reaches up to grip the necklace hanging around his throat. It feels like a lie, a cheat, laying against his heart. The word of Dream being locked up after trying to kill Tubbo in the bid to get the disks back reached him and he had instantly wrapped a hand around the necklace with the intent to _shatter_ the thing.

( **See? You were just a tool all along. Something for him to use.** )

But he had stopped from doing it then, frozen like the lands outside his abode. He rips it off; the chain falling to the cell floor in bits and pieces. He holds the stasis chamber trinket in his hands, shoves it forward so Dream can see it. The other shrinks under the rage radiating from Techno.

“You used me! Was this your plan all along? Have me hear about you being locked up and then like some love-sick _dog_ get you out using this!?” He shouts and lifts his hand to throw the gift to the floor. It the biggest reaction he’s gotten out of Dream, whose eyes shoot to look at him, wide and fearful, and his mouth falling open with horror. Techno, for just a moment, considers it’s a guilty look. 

“ _No_!” Dream cries, hands shooting out to grip Techno’s and, in a panic, wrestle the trinket from his fingers. He stumbles away from the hybrid and clutches the gift to his chest with a spooked expression.

“Way to prove it,” Techno hisses, mouth curling into a sneer. Dream finds his legs unable to hold him and slips to the floor – still desperately, with a tender touch, holding the orb. Techno feels numb to the sight, and what a strange thing that is, as he never thought he would feel _nothing_ while looking at Dream.

“ _Please_ ,” The words slip out with a gentle sob, “Don’t break it, please. I d-don’t care what you do with it, but please – I’m begging you not to break it like t-that! Like you don’t _care_ –”

“I _don’t_ ,” Techno snaps. Dream’s gasp is just a startle hiccup as he gazes up at Techno. His mouth moves like a drowning fish. How foolish of him to think like that, like there would be anything there to care for after all.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? Cut away all your ties so then you weren’t controllable, right?” Techno crosses his arms and steps away from Dream, who looks away in shame.

“Not you,” He whispers weakly, “Never planned to lose you too.”

“You should have thought about that before you tried to use me like another pawn in your game,” He bites back. Dream gingerly holds the trinket in his palm and runs a single finger across the surface.

“I think I’m in love with you, actually,” Dream murmurs. Techno pulls back the queued retort he has – actually, he pulls back in his entirety and just _stares_ , completely dumbfounded.

“I didn’t know how to say it, so I made you this instead, because I know people can’t always trust the things I say, but actions can be trusted, right? Those have purpose and thought behind them and aren’t just your _stupid_ brain vomiting all over the place.” He sniffles and pulls a hand along his face to wipe at the cooling tears there.

Techno feels his heart and mind being pulled in every direction. Dream’s always seemed so safe, but that was only for him, wasn’t it? Dream’s never been safe for anyone else. It’s a startling, hard realization. He wishes he could go back, to that night maybe, and ask what he meant by those words. Maybe Dream would have told him what he was planning, maybe Techno could have stopped him.

“Did you get what you wanted?” He cautiously asks.

“What?” Dream starts.

“What this all was for – did you get it?” Techno can feel anger seeping back into his words, but this time he thinks its towards himself. A bittersweet smile pulls Dream’s lip, and his gaze shifts away, out towards where the lava has settled back into a flow around his cell.

“One would think with me sitting here, in this inescapable box, that I didn’t,” He laughs acrimoniously, “But I _did_.”

Techno opens his mouth to ask what it was, but a sensation like a spider pinning a fly curls around his mind, and he decides maybe it’s for the best he is left in the dark. Instead, he reaches down to take the trinket from Dream’s palm – who for just a second doesn’t let him. The soft look on the hybrid’s face, however, convinces him to let it go.

“A little love charm, then?” Techno asks.

“It’s all it ever was,” Dream admits. There is a somber quiet that creeps into the room, only interrupted occasionally by the popping of lava. They bask in it for a few moments.

“You’ve done terrible things, Dream,” Techno sighs.

“I know.”

“And I can’t – _won’t_ – help you escape,” He pulls his brows together, like it hurts him to say those words, because deep down he wishes he could return home and smash the necklace on the stone there.

“That’s okay,” Dream accepts. 

Techno, pocketing the orb, kneels to where Dream is still slumped against the wall. He picks up Dream’s chin, wet with tears, between his fingers and gently gifts him a kiss to the forehead, then cheekbone, then lips. A content sigh leaves the imprisoned man’s mouth. Techno leans his forehead against Dream’s.

“I’ll visit you,” He assures him.

“I look forward to it. They’ll be much more reserved than Tommy’s visits. He’s making me write a fifteen-page essay on how-to pick-up girls. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that isn’t my area of expertise.”

Techno lets out a snort, “Of course he is.”

The two share one final kiss before Techno stands to turn around, heading for the button he needs to press to let Sam know he is ready to leave.

“See you soon,” Techno tells him, putting pressure on the button and hearing it click.

“Goodbye,” Dream whispers.

The barrier between the two is forced back up, and the platform that moves him through the lava activates as he stands on it. Sam is waiting for him on the other side, looking plain, if not a bit melancholy.

“Another frequent visitor for my list?” He asks.

“For as long as he is here,” Techno tells him. 

And with the little bit of love in his pocket, he isn’t sure how long that will be.

( **Free Him.** )


End file.
